SEEING AMERICA: William Gropper’s The Opposition, 1942

illiam Gropper fiercely satirizes the corruption and hypocrisy of the American Congress.

The Art

At first glance The Opposition might be a dubious tribute to the vitality of the democratic process. An antiquated senator vigorously waves his legislation. He dominates the space, his raised right hand bisecting the dynamic diagonal curve of the gallery balcony. With his torso, arm, and chin thrust dramatically

forward, he towers over the other legislators. Energy is also conveyed in the sweep of the balcony, the jux-taposition of the geometric shapes with the biomorphic forms, and the vibrating contrast of the Prussian blue suits against the burnt orange of the wood.

But of course the orator’s audience, already meager, is either asleep or inattentive. Ancient bald heads pre-dominate, with the dome in the fore-ground strikingly outsized. The two members on the left, huddled con-

spiratorially, are wearing dark glasses. The suits, an iridescent blue-purple, are just too shiny. The orator himself is portrayed as grotesque. In short, everything is exaggerated. The resulting caricature is Gropper’s means of expressing his moral indignation.

William Gropper (1897 – 1977)

The Opposition, 1942

Oil on canvas

Marion Stratton Gould Fund, 51.5

Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the

University of Rochester

Courtesy of Heritage Gallery, CA

Classroom Guide: Seeing America Through Artists’ Eyes 1

W

William Gropper (1897 - 1977)

A New Bill, 1940

Lithograph

Gift of Betty Dennis Burt, Alfred Crimi and Sister

Magdalen LaRow, by exchange, 96.31

Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the

University of Rochester

Courtesy of Heritage Gallery, CA

And what are we to make of the suggestion of a cross in one of the me-dieval-style windows of the chamber? Considering the satiric tone of the painting, might Gropper be implying his concern about religion and its rela-tionship to politics?

This painting and two lithographs in the Gallery’s collection are based on sketches Gropper did between 1934 and 1942. The lithographs are part of a series, “Sowers of the Senatorial Winds,” begun in 1930 when he started “covering” the United States Senate for Vanity Fair. Images from these prints were incorporated into the oil painting, The Opposition, completed in 1942. Art historians continue their attempts to identify the individual senators portrayed in Gropper’s paintings.

The Artist

You don’t paint with color—you paint with conviction, freedom, love and heartaches—with what you have. The other end is the technique, the equipment with which you convey that.1

William Gropper was born in 1897 in the Russian-Jewish ghetto of New York’s Lower East Side and lived his entire life in or near New York City. While poverty forced him to drop out of high school, Gropper did manage to study part time with realist artists Robert Henri and George Bellows. In 1917 he was hired as a staff artist at the New York Tribune and later for several radical magazines.

Gropper’s social consciousness grew out of his impoverished childhood and his work as a teenager in the garment district sweatshops. In 1927–28 he visited Soviet Russia with American authors Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis as delegates to the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution which put the Bolsheviks and Lenin in power. This experience reinforced his com-mitment to exposing social injustice and class inequality through his art. He believed art could induce political change in a democratic society, and his caricatures of America’s wealthy and powerful politicians and captains of industry were meant to educate the American people. During his entire career he produced political cartoons and satirical drawings exposing the abuses and scandals he witnessed.

“I have portrayed the type of representative that is opposed to progress and culture,” Gropper wrote (Seeing America, 256). Politically active artists deliberately selected the medium of lithography because images could be produced cheaply enough that people could afford to buy them. His litho-

Classroom Guide: Seeing America Through Artists’ Eyes 2

William Gropper (1897 – 1977)

The Opposition, 1942

Lithograph

Gift of the Print Club of Rochester, by exchange, 89.59

Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the

University of Rochester

Courtesy of Heritage Gallery, CA

William Gropper (1897 – 1977)

Tax Cut

Courtesy of Heritage Gallery, CA

19771897

William Gropper born in New York City

Gropper dies

17651837

18521846

18761865

19071911

19231928

19391942

19481998

1963

The Great Depression affected artists in fundamental ways, just as it chal-lenged all institutions in America. The “art for art’s sake” attitude of the 1920s had emphasized individual expression and development of new styles of art. In the 1930s, artists found themselves in a precarious position as their regular patrons disappeared and support for public art projects required art styles that the tax payers would approve. As the Depression exacerbated the economic inequalities in America, many artists turned to social and polit-ical issues as the focus of their work. These social commentators portrayed dust-bowl farmers, urban poverty, racial injustice, and hapless government officials. Some artists documented events, others made statements of pro-test, and others created intense and vehement personal expressions. William Gropper painted several murals for the WPA/Federal Art Project in the 1930s. Angered when the Senate eliminated these relief programs for artists, he responded with his painting, The Opposition.

1William Gropper, quoted in August L. Freundlich, William Gropper: Retrospective, exhibition catalogue (Joe and Emily Lowe Art Gallery of the University of Miami, and the Phoenix Art Museum, 1968), 13.

See also Roberta K. Tarbell, “William Gropper: The Opposition (1942),” in Marjorie B. Searl, ed., Seeing America: Painting and Sculpture from the Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2006), 254–57.

Classroom Guide: Seeing America Through Artists’ Eyes 3

Glossary

WPA/Federal Art Project: During the Great Depression of the 1930s, a government agency that employed artists in a variety of media and on a wide range of projects.

graphs appeared in the leftist publications New Masses and Freiheit as well as the New York Herald-Tribune and the New Yorker. In 1953 he was questioned about his politics by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Gropper was among the first American art-ists and intellectuals to be blacklisted by the senator. Although sympathetic to socialism and active in many leftist organizations, Gropper never joined the Communist Party and abhorred the violence of the Bolsheviks.

Although best known for his cartoons, satirical drawings, and illustrations, William Gropper was a successful painter and exhibited his work in several one-man shows. Over his fifty-year career Gropper concentrated on por-traying the people of America as he saw them, not always kindly, but with “conviction, freedom, love and heartaches.”

America

Ben Shahn

Years of Dust, Resettlement Administration, 1937

Photolithograph

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library,

National Archives and Records Administration

MO 90-10

Hugo Gellert

Coal Miner, 1926

Cover of New Masses, May 1926

McCarthy leads HUAC

19501954

19451937

Picasso paints Guernica

Internment Japanese Americans

begins

Battle of Midway

Manhattan Project scientists produce first

atomic bomb

19351942

WPA/Federal Art Project

1941

U. S. enters World War II

1943

Classroom Activities: Seeing America Through Artists’ Eyes

Observing Detail

What clues in the painting tell you where and when this is?

How does knowing the title, The Opposition, shape the meaning in this painting?

William Gropper wrote, “I have portrayed the type of representative that is opposed to progress and culture” (Seeing America, 256). How does the artist convey his feeling in this painting?

What questions would you ask the artist?

Comparing and Contrasting

William Gropper sketched the members of the Senate for many years and produced a number of prints and paintings. What elements and details of the prints can be found in the 1942 painting The Opposition? How would you describe Gropper’s artistic style?

Classroom Guide: Seeing America Through Artists’ Eyes 4

William Gropper (1897 – 1977)

The Opposition, 1942

Lithograph

Gift of the Print Club of Rochester, by exchange, 89.59

Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the

University of Rochester

Courtesy of Heritage Gallery, CA

William Gropper (1897 – 1977)

A New Bill, 1940

Lithograph

Gift of Betty Dennis Burt, Alfred Crimi and Sister Magdalen LaRow, by

exchange, 96.31

Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester

Courtesty of Heritage Gallery, CA

Reading and Interpreting Visual Language/Comparing and Contrasting

William Gropper and Joseph Keppler continued a long American tradition of politically active artists. William Gropper’s lithograph,The Opposition, was part of a series, “Sowers of the Senatorial Winds,” published in Vanity Fair in the 1940s. Austrian-born Keppler (1838-1894) moved to America in 1867 and after drawing cover cartoons for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, he established the humorous weekly magazine Puck and drew all of its cartoons. Compare Gropper’s choice of visual imagery in the lithograph with that of Joseph Keppler in his 1889 political cartoon, The Bosses of the Senate.

Classroom Guide: Seeing America Through Artists’ Eyes 5

Joseph Keppler

The Bosses of the Senate, 1889

Colored lithograph

PUCK, January 23, 1889

Exploring the Context

Artists are keen observers and commentators on the world in which they live. Use The Artist and America timelines to con-sider the effect of American history and art history as reflected in their artwork. In what ways did the artist capture or reflect the events, mood and/or values of his/her America? In what ways did the artist continue or alter the American art traditions he/she would have seen?

We are grateful for the generous support of this project from the Anne and Vincent DeClue family and our School Program sponsors: Dominion, Bank of America, the Mary W. Clark Trust and two anonymous donors. Additional sup-

port is provided by Thomson Reuters, the Chester and Dorris Carlson Charitable Trust, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. Judson Jr., Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation, Hammer Packaging, the estate of Estelle B. Goldman and an anonymous donor

for the McPherson Director of Education.

William Gropper (1897 – 1977)

The Opposition, 1942

Lithograph

Gift of the Print Club of Rochester, by exchange, 89.59

Collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the

University of Rochester

Courtesy of Heritage Gallery, CA